What in the world…? Cursing under his breath, Benziorn scrambled quickly to his feet and kicked dirt over the smoldering ashes of his fire. Melting back into the shadows, he found a crumbling spot in the stonework of the wall and boosted himself up to lie flat on the broad rim of the massive dye vat—a vantage point from which he could scan most of the floor of the old mill. There came another grinding squeak, and the muffled sound of a man’s voice cursing, followed by the crash of something heavy falling. The sound seemed vaguely familiar… With a shock of belated recollection, the physician identified the noise. His mind went back to the night when Jarvas’s compound had been attacked, and the Nightrunners had come up through the grating in the floor of the fulling mill…
Could it be someone seeking Yanis? Benziom shifted his position slightly, craning his neck to try to see around one of the supporting pillars. A moment later, two figures stumbled into sight, silhouetted against the fading light of the doorway. They were reeling and tottering as though they were the ones who were drunk, supporting one another briefly before they sank down in a huddle on the mill-room floor.
Benziorn waited, rigid with suspicion and suspense, for another sign of movement, but the intruders did not stir. As the light from the doorway faded, he wondered if he could safely escape by slipping through the shadows. Yanis might need him, and Tarnal would be hunting for him now, for sure. Silent as a ghost, he slid down from the top of the vat—or at least, that had been the idea. In reality, the physician was still suffering from the effects of all the spirits he had imbibed. He missed his footing and came down hard, landing with a grunt and stumbling over one of his empty bottles, which rolled and shattered against the side of the vat with a crash that sounded deafening in the dusky silence of the abandoned mill. Cursing under his breath, Benziorn froze. He heard the soft, rustling scrape of someone stirring on the other side of the vat.
“Dad? Did you hear that?”
“Shhh…”
There came the hissing, slithering sound of a sword being quietly unsheathed—but Benziorn had already identified the first voice as that of a young girl. Coupled with the drink still in his blood, it gave him courage. The very possibility that these people seemed to be afraid and hiding too, seemed to imply that they would scarcely be an enemy.
“Who’s there?” he called. “Whoever you are, there’s no need to be frightened. I mean you no ha—” His words cut off in a choked squeak as the keen steel of a sword blade pressed an icy line across his throat.
“Move, and you die. Call out, and the first word you utter will be your last. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” the physician whispered, trembling. He was seized with a desperate urge to look around to see the face of his attacker, though he knew it would be impossible to identify the assailant in the growing darkness—and such folly would certainly mean his death. He felt that his knees must give way at any moment through sheer terror—yet if they did, the sword would slice his throat. A trickle of rank sweat ran down his spine. Benziorn held his body rigid, concentrating very hard on facing forward and staying on his feet.
“Now—who are you?” the gruff voice demanded.
“B-benziorn. A physician… well, a former physician.”
“What?”
“I don’t mean you any harm—I’m not your enemy. Look, if you want, I’ll go away and not look back. I don’t care who you are—I’m only a pitiful drunkard now—I can’t hurt anyone, and I don’t take sides. Please, good sir…” Even in the midst of his undignified babbling, Benziorn felt a flare of outraged pride. How could you sink so low? asked a small voice at the back of his mind—yet now that his life was at stake, he knew he would abase himself as much as was necessary. Since the death of his wife and children he had often sworn to himself that he did not care whether he lived or died—yet now that the time had come to make good his vow, he found, to his amazement, that he cared very much indeed. Life, which had been a burden to him for so long, had, in the space of an instant—and by the narrow margin of a sword’s edge—become a very precious gift.
“Benziorn?” mused the voice. “Gods, that name sounds familiar. Hold on—aren’t you the man who attended my wife in childbirth, when the Magefolk Healer wouldn’t come?”
Terror knotted the physician’s bowels. The owner of the sword could only be one man—the only Mortal in the city who might have expected to call upon the services of Meiriel… A frantic notion of temporizing further—of lying, even—raced through his mind and died aborning, just as Vannor’s wife had died. “At least I saved the child,” he whispered. “I would have saved his mother, too—had there been any way…”
“Damn you…”
The sword trembled against his unprotected throat, and a thin line of hot blood ran down into the collar of his tunic…
“Dad…” It was the girl’s voice again, urgent and pleading. “Don’t do this. Dulsina told me the physician did his best. It wasn’t his fault that Lady Meiriel wouldn’t come. Whatever you do, it won’t bring Mother back. And after what we’ve just been through, how can you blame him for the actions of the Magefolk? If it’s anyone’s fault that Mother didn’t survive Antor’s birth, the blame should lie with Lady Meiriel—but now she’s dead—”
“She’s dead?”
Benziorn felt the sword drop away from his throat. With a whimper, he sagged against the curving wall of the vat, too undone even to think of running away.
“I had no time to tell you,” the young girl went on, “but they knew, in the Academy…”
Vannor gasped. “But Parric was with her—and Elewin.”
He cried in anguish. “What happened to them? Are they dead too?”
At that moment, shadows leapt high into the rafters of the mill as the saffron light of a torch blazed in the doorway. The physician saw the faces of his assailants for the first time—and wondered how he could ever have been afraid. A familiar voice called: “Benziorn? Benziorn, you drunken idiot! Are you there?”
“Tarnal!” the young girl cried. “Thank the gods it’s you!” To Benziorn’s amused astonishment, she flew into the Nightrunner’s arms—and a quick, sly glance at Tarnal’s face proved that the young smuggler didn’t object at all.
17
The Seeing
Aurian awakened, stiff and tired, with Wolf whimpering in her arms. Instinctively she soothed the cub as she opened her eyes to see an unfamiliar ceiling of silver-veined rock, much darker and rougher than that within the fastness. Is this a cavern? she wondered blearily, only half-awake. Where the blazes am I? Gripped with sudden anxiety, she turned to see Anvar asleep beside her, the smudges of smoke accentuating the pallor of his weariness, and dark circles shadowing his closed eyes. Reassured, she was about to turn over and snuggle back into the warmth of the furs that were tucked around her, when the memory hit her. Bohan. Another comrade lost in this senseless struggle. And she had promised to help him find his voice again, but there had never been time… A memory surfaced from the previous hours, following their escape from the fastness: of warm, flickering firelight within this cavern, a hot drink, and Shia, greatly distressed, telling her that the eunuch had actually called out as he felclass="underline" “Shia. My friend …”
The Mage closed her eyes against the pain. Shia had always been Bohan’s friend—and had proved a better friend than Aurian, who had sent him to his death…
“No, you did not. You were trying to save him.” Though the voice had picked the thought from her mind, it was speaking aloud now. Aurian turned to see the Xandim Windeye sitting cross-legged beside the fire, not far from the shelf of rock that formed her bed. Chiamh looked worse than Anvar—and as bad as herself, she suspected. His face was so haggard with weariness that he seemed to have aged overnight. Aurian left Wolf in his nest of furs beside Anvar and slid out of her warm refuge with a sigh. Though she was tired and heartsick, there was too much to do to lie abed. Trying vainly to straighten her creased and rumpled clothing, the Mage went to join the Windeye by the fire. She sat down beside him, gratefully accepting a steaming cup of fragrant herb tea. “You’re right about Bohan, I know,” she sighed. “But it’s hard not to feel responsible.” She felt her throat grow tight with unshed tears. “We never even had a chance to bury him…”